Sugar

 Am I the only parent who despises the kid-centric community holiday hype? I literally hate it. All it is is a chance for more whining, arguing, complaining and fighting. They whine when it’s time to leave. It’s a fight about all the dance SUGAR our country thinks kids need in order to have fun. And if I limit them because I care about their future potential diabetes, I’M the bad mom. It’s one more repeat of plastering a forced smile on my face when they say, “Mom, look at me!” in the bouncy house. It’s the work of cleaning up, the work of making them presentable, the work of getting them out of the house. It’s just all work. Why do I hate this so much? And why does it just feel like SO MUCH WORK. 

Pain

 When a person experiences pain on a daily basis it shapes both their view of the world and of themselves. It’s not necessarily predictable which shape they may take and it may vacillate even within the hour. Bitterness is one that comes from anger that everyone else gets the easy road without even trying. Humility is another more delicate shape from an acute awareness of their weaknesses. Vengeful determination can form out of an intense albeit brief offensive attack at the cause of the pain. But when that brigade once again fails they are consumed by defeat and dismay. 

and tired. So ... so... so tired. Physically, mentally, and spiritually tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of searching for answers. Tired of hoping. Tired a trying yet one more promising solution. 

Compassion and empathy are the shapes that can truly be beautiful. Lemonade, all things working for good, silver linings — call it what you may it, it doesn’t erase the past pain or cushion the next onslaught, but it is the only beautiful thing that I can see emerging that makes them loved by fellow sufferers who at least don’t have to be alone and in pain. Because we all know that being in pain is hard enough, but being in pain and alone simultaneously adds way more than insult upon injury. 

May you have empathy and be un-alone. 

On The Edge

Waiting. Unknown. Trepidation. Trust. Acceptance.
This is a strange place to be, when something could happen any day, yet each day it doesn't. When you really wonder how much longer you can go on, yet you know somehow you will. Anticipating a joy so beautiful accompanied by fear of the worst pain a soul one can know. Hoping for the best yet preparing for the worst. Either way within a week my life will be different.

Patience. Peace. Forty-one weeks.

Inconclusive

I went to an abdominal ultrasound today for a “palpable mass” that a family doctor was actually able to feel. But the ultrasound was inconclusive. Ultrasonography can’t see past or into the intestines. So if it’s something of that nature it will require a CT scan or MRI, which will have to be after the baby is born- due March 26^th.

You know what’s awful? I actually wish they would have found a tumor. Because then there would be a defined cause, and an explanation, and a course of action. Instead of everyone just thinking I’m psychosomatic, or weak and complaining, self-centered and spoiled. I would actually rather have cancer than have this.

I want to be cured. I want to be the former self again. I want to be happy and healthy, energetic and vibrant. I want to enjoy my 2 year old and my pregnancy. I want to enjoy cooking for my husband, enjoy food, and exercise with enthusiasm. Instead of walking around like a bloated, nauseous, shell of fatigue. And inevitably depression follows. As bad as it is, my heart hurts worse than the symptoms. I’d rather have pain than this.

God, I still know you can cure me. I still believe you want to. But I don’t understand why. Bill Johnson says you must have continual mystery in your life to challenge your faith. Well I sure do.

Please help.

Strife to Patience

This is the highest peak of requirement for patience that I have ever experienced. How do you live with joy and peace and rest and all the essence of what SHALOM in the midst of constant bickering, arguing, raised voices, disagreements, and unyielding opinions by frustrated, discontent, angry people??? Add into that a needy two-year old with no playmates, a mentally disabled 50 yr old woman, and a husband who wants sex at the end of a long day at 11 o'clock at night when all I can think of is collapsing in bed, popping in some melatonin with a hot water bottle on my sore muscles and hopefully drifting off to sleep uninterrupted by toddler nightmare cries.

My most anticipated time of day is at 5am gathering my bible, notebook, iphone, earbuds, and hot bullet-proof coffee....before any other soul is awake I revel in presence of musical worship of my God. I have to soak in worship of Him in this transcendent few moments before interaction with opposing expressions, demands, needs, and attitudes threaten to tear me down into sin.

Throughout the day I speak to Jesus, I pray in tongues, I put in the earbuds again to hear music, sermons, reports on any of my particular passions that peak my interest on that day...anything other than the arguing and strife. And I leave. I make it a point to get my son and I out of the house at least once a day. I would have rather been out today after nap time as well. It is trying. No one is hitting or screaming. But it's a constant spirit of division. It's affecting me. And it's affecting my son. But I will fight. I will fight hard.

I am going to intentionally seek out friendship and connection with Christian women and outlets for me to serve and love those in need who do not know Christ. Lord, I ask for help to find this.

And yet, thank you God, for this time of growing and developing of my strength of peace. To be the eye of the storm, as my dear friend prophesied before we came here. May I be that more. Only through you. Jesus--only in You. Be in me and me in You...

Trust with Laughter and Singing!

        I have had three tests in the last week. Two won, and one lost. But they are just battles.  The true victory is yet to fight for. And today is another chance! The battles may be common to women. Perhaps you will find encouragement and help in your time of struggle:

1st: Fatigue  >> won!  Loss of sleep and fatigue has been one of the hardest trials for me to face. Especially these last 2 1/2 years after after extreme disappointment, depression, and physical chronic illnesses (Lymes) since my unplanned c-section. But THIS time I did not wallow or complain! I woke up feeling exhausted and achey and 120 years old. I immediately requested help from God for energy and joy because otherwise the recurrent dragging myself through the day, uninvolved and just looking for the next chance to sleep would repeat. And He answered my cry for dependency  with a YES! wow. Thank you my God

2nd: Identity  >>won! I made a huge mistake... with our recent move to Alaska we are trying to close our former bank account. In order to do so it has to be at a zero balance with no pending charges. We waited two weeks and wrote a check out to ourselves. While waiting for that to clear I also paid off our Amex online, clicked submit... Oh NO! It was automated to pay from the previous bank account! I called and tried to cancel the same day payment. No avail. I called the bank. Nothing to do. Oh man...overdraft charge....another check ALSO cleared late and another overdraft.... I tried to fix my own problem with Paypal. Made it worse... but the most dreaded part was telling my husband. I had tried to tell myself it's ok, prayed, tried to not worry and fall into the self-condemnation. It was ok until it hit and I heard, "Honey, I want to trust you but... you rush things. You need to slow down and be more careful."  It may not sound awful, but I have desired my husband's approval to a fault. Actually depending my identity on weather he is currently pleased with me or not. Out of good intentions, but putting him in a place where only God should be. It hurt. All of my sadness of failure started to seep back into my healing heart. We ended the brief conversation. But THIS time I took action. I went for a run pushing my toddler in the stroller on these Alaskan roads with snow capped mountains in the backdrop. And internally I ran to my Daddy King. A remembered what the Holy Spirit had planted in my soul the day before. I am a Princess. My name means Princess. How does a royal Princess respond when she has made a horrible mistake? She innocently runs to her Daddy King who she has no doubt will thoroughly redeem her error, without judgement or condemnation. She does not lose her value or identity. Because she is not a failure, she is a Princess who just made a transient mistake. So.. I did received this. And not just with words, I actually changed my heart, my mood, and my expression. And I responded opposite to my tendency to avoid my husband when I got home, to avoid the expression of disappointment and the pain. Instead I looked at him with a smile and walked right up to him. And guess what, he smiled and gave me a hug. "It's really ok honey." Thank you God.

3rd: Body Image  >> lost.  I do not know of any woman who has not dealt with negative body image. My struggle is feeling fat when I am bloated, which has been an repetitive battle in health and digestion. Along with real weight gain and condemnation, failure, and preoccupation. It happened again, I ate things that I should have known would make me bloated, and I had been enjoying more food than is necessary. Here comes that bloating and feeling fat.... I again allowed my physical condition to affect my soul and spirit, and thus my interaction with my son and husband. I didn't complain (yay! mini victory), but I was not filled with joy from the Holy Spirit.

So, two out of three is pretty good! Celebrate the victories and get up quickly from the knocks down.  Rally my troops with the Word. Read Song of Solomon in the Message or the Passion Translation as God speaking to me. Recite Truth: ~My body REALLY  is just temporary. It really is not the needle gauge of who I am inside. While some soul conditions do show in physical conditions, my belly's protrusion and fat rolls do not lower or lessen my value or worth. Yes, a couple of times I may have taken too large a portion and found relaxation in eating, but other times I was enjoying fellowship and freedom and I am still learning the balance between freedom and physique. It's not permanent. Allow myself to fail, but motivate to do better today.

"Pure God put in the fire comes out proved genuine...when Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold (aka not my body) that God will have on display as evidence of His victory." (1Peter 1:6-7MSG)

 I can hedge myself by eating less and eating right--according to what I know works for my body, taking digestive enzymes etc. But I know it will come again and I will need to prepare with TRUTH. Be encouraged and inspired, fight with joy! I will win next time!

"Trust Him with laughter and singing!" 

1 Peter 1:6 MSG

"So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives. Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing.You didn't know any better then, you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness!"

1 Peter 1:13-16 MSG

Tenacity vs. Tears

i am somewhere between fighting harder for unity than I ever have before and breaking down in tears, with forming a cold stone heart wall in dangerous procsimity. 

How can you be so in love and connected in unity with someone one hour and then feel so hurt, insulted, distanced, belittled, unimportant and  so UNLOVED by him the next hour? 

Whenever, and in order to, love someone truly and deeply, you open your heart up to them and give a piece of it away. If you do this with negligence of the remainder you gradually become less and less until you realize you don't even know who you are anymore. You've given the determinant of the state of your soul away, making your joy or sorrow, sadness or delight, completely dependent on their response and action towards you. You share your own found joys because every time a joy is shared and reciprocated it multiplies twofold. You share your sorrows because every time a discouragement or sadness is shared and understood with empathy it lightened in half. Your soul knows this. So it continues to try. Even though it has been crushed time and time again. Because when you share your joy and it is met with disgust, disdain, disagreement, or even disinterest, that joy that was pure and hopeful and shining is suddenly shattered into a million sharp and hurtful pieces. And when you try to get your load lightened by sharing your sorrow and it is responded to with belittling, insulting, accusing your once small sorrow just became a mighty drowning torrent. 

Scientists have found the DNA of the last 6 people that a person has had sex with inside of their body. In this intimate case you actually have physically given parts of your being. Even if you have only ever had sex with one person, you give yourself away repetitively every time. And your offspring actually is made up of your DNA as well. You have given part of you in making them. But this is not horrid as it sounds. This was actually a better design than my selfish nature would have composed. Because the true design was that the separating of part of yourself was in actuality a pruning. It was to make you more, not less.  The painful loss is not a loss at all, it is a tending, a caring, a bettering. And realize it doesn't matter what happens to the piece that was cut off. It could be discarded, burned, crushed, or forgotten. But the branch still benefits from the cutting. It yields more fruit, juicier fruit, and bigger fruit. 

When we give our love and heart to our spouse and children and friends they have a free choice to receive it with honors, appreciation, and joy, or to reject it, disdain it, or not even notice it. They can reciprocate or ruthlessly negotiate. But if we spend all our time and energy mourning the fate of our twiggy sprout that was cut off, we sap the very life from our once healthy vine that is left. To seal our resurrection we must recognize and allow the boundaries of person. That is now theirs and them. And this is me and my responsibility. And, it's ok.  No actually, better than ok. Because if, and when, I cease from striving to overbear and enable that twig, the great miracle is it can then take root in its own. 

So, be ok. Be myself. Don't build walls of cold fortress in fear and anger to pretext my heart. But let more get pruned away everyday. And with a smile, with a softness, and with a knowing beyond the moment, and even beyond these five or ten years, we can allow more. It's what Jesus know when he broke the bread before he gave his body and soul. But gained so much more. 

So I can either not share a joy if I know it will be smashed or I can hear the crashing, yet keep my full joy because I have already had it multiplied to completion by first sharing it with Christ Jesus' Holy Spirit. Who is always understanding, always encouraging, always wise and always compassionate. He loves me better than I love myself and knows what is more beneficial for my good in the grand tapestry more than in this small stitch of time. So sigh.  And smile. He is good. Pain comes, but there is joy in the morning.